Thursday, April 26, 2007

From Sydney Morning HeraldAustralia marauded into their fourth consecutive World Cup final overnight by again embarrassing South Africa on the game's biggest stage.Glenn McGrath re-opened old wounds and Shaun Tait made them sting painfully in setting up a seven-wicket semi-final victory.McGrath, playing in the penultimate game of his career, took the new ball and used it to claim three crucial wickets in ageless fashion, while Tait finished with career-best figures of 4-39."Full credit to our bowlers ... all the bowlers have just been fantastic. All four are in the top five or six leading wicket takers in the tournament," Australian captain Ricky Ponting said."We are in really good shape and looking forward to Saturday coming around really quickly."South African skipper Graeme Smith rejected suggestions that South Africa had choked on a big occasion."To me choking is when you get close to winning,'' he said. "We just didn't play well, there were one or two loose shots."Tait as first change as a strike bowler does make life a little difficult.''Ponting said reducing South Africa to 27 for five in the 10th over had been a tremendous start."We had them under pressure from the first over of the game,'' he said."They came out really aggressive and really positive."Sometimes that comes off in one-day cricket, sometimes it doesn't. I must admit we wanted them to come out hard.''The Australia captain said there was still more to come from his team, who have not once been seriously confronted for 100 overs during the past seven weeks."We are doing a lot of things really well at the moment,'' he said. ``Whether what we are doing is better than last World Cup, I'm not sure."There's no doubt that out skills in the tournament have been exceptional.''Smith won the toss and felt his side's best hope of turning the tables on Australia was to bat first, but with McGrath on a hat trick at 5-27 the dream was in complete ruins.South Africa were demolished for 149, the country's lowest ever total in its increasingly traumatic World Cup history.The shell-shocked South Africans gave themselves a shot with the early wicket of Adam Gilchrist, but Australia in this brutal state of mind were never going to allow the kind of disaster that befell their opponents.With Matthew Hayden in command, as he has been all tournament, Australia cruised to victory with 18.3 overs to spare.Hayden made 41, and was never hurried. He will enter the World Cup final against Sri Lanka in Barbados on Saturday - a reprisal of the 1996 decider in Lahore - with a fearsome series record of 621 runs at 77.62, and a strike rate better than a run a ball.This game was hyped as a clash of two heavyweights, and inevitably as South Africa's chance to banish forever the demons of World Cups past, including the tied semi-final of Edgbaston, 1999.Now those demons will linger for another four years, after Nathan Bracken, McGrath and Tait combined to instigate a dramatic top order collapse.Smith was the first casualty, bowled as he walked down the wicket at Bracken.Jacques Kallis, criticised for his snail's innings in the group game against Australia, took a bold approach to McGrath, charging and slapping him to boundary over point.In the same over a yorker length ball toppled his off stump and he was gone for five from nine balls.With South Africa in deep trouble, Ricky Ponting sensed a chance to go in for the kill and tossed the ball to Tait, who with his fifth ball captured the edge of AB de Villers.South Africa had talked of being due some luck in World Cups, but there was nothing unlucky about this collapse.Ashwell Prince and Mark Boucher nibbled at consecutive, tasty deliveries from McGrath when they needed to survive. The ball that got Prince would have been a wide had he not reached for it, but the pressure closing around South Africa at Beausejour Stadium was palpable.A couple of months ago critics were questioning the 37-year-old McGrath's place in the starting XI; now his aura is as powerful as ever and he is set to finish his fourth World Cup and his brilliant career as the tournament's outstanding bowler.After Michael Clarke, with a smooth and unbeaten 60 from 86 balls, and Andrew Symonds sealed the win, a place in the final was greeted with handshakes rather than jubilant hugs.It suggested the job was unfinished, and that Australia will not celebrate until an unprecedented third consecutive World Cup is in the cabinet.Australia have beaten South Africa by seven wickets in their World Cup semi-final in St Lucia.Shaun Tait took 4-39, while Glenn McGrath continued his excellent run of form with 3-18.

No comments:

About Me

John Cheeran is an engineer-turned-journalist and has worked in such diverse media as Print, Internet and Radio. Cheeran has an abiding interest in cricket and its politics, and in politics in general.
Cheeran quit an Indian arm of the US-based global giants General Electric in 1994 to join Asian College of Journalism. He then went on to write on sports, and mainly on cricket, for newspapers such as The Indian Express, The Asian Age, The Pioneer and www.timesofindia.com in India. Cheeran also had a seven-year stint with Gulf News in Dubai.
He also wrote regularly for regional publications including Malayala Manorama and Deshabhimani during his student days.
During his career, Cheeran has reported a string of national and international tournaments including the 1999 Cricket World Cup held in England, the annual Dubai Desert Classic Golf Championship and Dubai Tennis Championship in Dubai, the ICC Champions Trophy in Dhaka, the Independence Cup Cricket Championship in India, Asian Test Championship and a number of Davis Cup ties in India. Now, Cheeran is an adjunct faculty at Online Media Centre in Chennai.